Not Much to Look At

Last week TV, the cub reporter who had cut such a figure at the Philadelphia conventions, plunged jauntily into a bigger--and what looked like an easier-- assignment. Ten to 15 hours later, haggard and unshaven, he staggered away from one of the biggest and toughest political stories of a generation. The cub did a so-so job for a beginner, but nothing like the whiz-bang Philadelphia performance. The chief reason: the. conventions were shows that a TV camera could get its eye on, but an election, even an eye-opener like, this one, offered nothing much to look at.

Blackboards & Boredom. For its largest audience (an estimated 11 million around the country), TV tried earnestly to make up the difference by cooking up things to put on the screen. Some of the devices were effective and to the point--e.g., the simple scoreboards and graphs that gave the returns at a glance (but not the detail-packed blackboard charts that looked like visual doubletalk).

Some of the sights TV,showed were really something to see: the mounting uneasiness of Pollsters George Gallup and Elmo Roper as they tried through the night to explain figures that continued to defy their predictions; the smug expression on the face of Republican Campaign Manager Brownell as he twice claimed a Dewey victory; the glum face of Democratic National Chairman McGrath as he first expressed confidence in his candidate, the camera's slow pan around G.O.P. headquarters after dawn, the empty, gaily decorated Hotel Roosevelt ballroom, with no one left to hear a victory speech that no one was to deliver.

Some of the sights were boring nonsense. Too often, the pictures lacked imagination: a commentator droning from a script; a couple of them chattering aimlessly; dull interviews with men-in-the-street or with friends and neighbors of Tom Dewey.

The candidates themselves grinned from poster portraits, but never in the flesh. President Truman was in Missouri, out of TV range, and Governor Dewey's Manhattan suite was placed off limits by the secret service men who had come up from Washington to guard the next President. As interviewees, that left Candidate Henry Wallace (who looked bitter and pompous), Candidate Norman Thomas (chipper and witty) and major & minor party officials.

Doldrums & Dope. LIFE-NBC, which had stolen the show at the conventions, claimed a majority of the TV audience. A two-hour check by C.E. Hooper* in New York City gave it more than twice the rating of its runner-up, ABC. Unlike the rest, it never took a rest and was on the air longest (14 hours 38 minutes), while collars wilted and whiskers sprouted. Like CBS, it had the enterprise to go to Washington, Philadelphia and Baltimore to pick up interviews and color.

But it also had its doldrums. And, because it was the acknowledged leader in TV reporting, it had its neck way out. Overly ballyhooed, it flashed its "exclusive" sign at times to herald an interview that proved neither exclusive nor very exciting. LIFE and NBC representatives appeared almost always in pairs, though often there obviously was not even enough work for one man. And in the end, its commentators stayed out on the Dewey limb long after other stations had shinnied down to the ground.

ABC's coverage marked the TV debut of Walter Winchell and Drew Pearson. Both kept their noses in their scripts and their balding heads under hats. Winchell displayed his usual talent for saying nothing at all with the strident urgency of Gabriel trumpeting Judgment Day. Pearson repaired to a phone from time to time and returned to dispense "inside" dope which was not particularly informative, but had a lively jangle. The real ABC sparkplug--and TV's top election reporter --was white-haired Elmer Davis, who spoke extemporaneously, generally made sense and radiated authority.

Most of the ABC show was just a televised version of the network's radio coverage--bad TV practice, but in this case it paid off. By & large, radio reported the 1948 election better than TV. It had the pacing, organization and assurance that the cub reporter still lacked.

*Hooper, who was evidently following the returns and feeling sensitive about poll-taking, explained testily: "What we do is not analogous to a political poll. It is analogous to the vote."

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